The announcement that Guantánamo had regained its connection with the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) this Friday sparked a wave of ironic and frustrated reactions on social media: dozens of citizens claimed that they noticed absolutely no change in their homes.
According to publications from the provincial media Periódico Venceremos on Facebook, the Electric Company of Guantánamo first reported that the province was disconnected from the SEN, and shortly thereafter, announced that the connection had been restored. The second announcement, far from providing relief, triggered a flood of comments questioning its actual significance.
"Hey, listen to that... and we don't have electricity most of the time," wrote one user. Another asked straightforwardly, "Why don't I have electricity?" A third one stated that there was no power: "neither before, nor during, nor after."
The technical distinction is crucial: the reconnection of a province to the national electrical system (SEN) does not mean that all its circuits will receive power, especially when there are 54 damaged transformers in the province, according to data from the Guantánamo Electric Company as of this Friday.
Another comment illustrated it accurately: “They are faster than lightning; they fixed it in ten minutes, but we’re still without electricity.”
Several users joked about the coincidence with the start of the weekend: "It's Friday and the SEN knows it", one wrote. Another was more explicit: "This is already the Friday game of the SEN, it crashes and I tell you the system is down, but it's definitely Friday as the weekends begin."
This Friday, the Electric Union estimated only 840 MW available against a demand of 2,800 MW, with a projected impact of nearly 1,990 MW nationwide, according to the daily outage report. The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the largest in the country, remained out of service following its fifth breakdown in October: an inspection revealed three simultaneous cracks in its boiler.
Guantánamo had already experienced a regional disconnection on October 25, when the outage of the Cueto-Renté high voltage line isolated the province along with Santiago de Cuba. Following that reconnection, power outages persisted: in the following days, the provincial impact remained between 50 and 62 MW, with circuits accumulating more than 21 hours without service.
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